Private Cinema

by William RuhlmannDanish experimental rock quintet Slaraffenland (the word means "the land of milk and honey" in Danish) adds vocals to their second full-length album, Private Cinema, released by the American indie Hometapes after an all-instrumental self-titled debut disc and the Jinkatawa EP issued on their own Honningmand label. But most of the time the human voices are used more as another instrument along with the guitars, drums, keyboards, and horns, rather than in a conventional way. (An exception is the second track, "Show Me the Way," which has a real repeated chorus.) The group creates soundscapes that can sound like the beginnings of a rehearsal before coalescing into song-like structures, only to give way to ambient passages. The effect can be trance-inducing, as the music invokes its own world, a world in which it is sometimes possible to dance and at other points to lapse into inner contemplation.